


say it like you mean it

by faerietell



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 04, Post-The Final Problem, Sherlolly - Freeform, also that stress and bad day stuff is suspicious af, so this is my answer, too much happened between that coffin scene and that smile I NEED TO FILL IT
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9340412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerietell/pseuds/faerietell
Summary: Molly Hooper dealt with reality.There was nothing more real than death. Poets romanticized it, artists painted it and martyrs knew it. Yet she was the one who knew it, really, had the dead lying on her slab.But reality wascruel.





	1. prologue

**i.**

Molly Hooper dealt with reality.

There was nothing more real than death. Poets romanticized it, artists painted it and martyrs knew it. Yet she was the one who knew it, really, had the dead lying on her slab. Because the thing was, she might be a romantic, a little bit of a dreamer, but she was sensible. She kept a lovely flat in London, was a woman working in a competitive field and wore cardigans. What more, she dealt with Sherlock Holmes, and he was always on the brink of it.

(

_“I’m worried about you, Molly, you seem very stressed.”_

)

He wasn’t wrong.

Except right now, nothing felt real. She was numb, head nestled between her arms as she stood over her kitchen sink, shoulders heaving. Her throat was dry, and she rinsed out her mouth again, spitting into the sink. It didn’t make the stink of vomit go away, and it didn’t make her feel any better. Tea. That was what she needed. She always thought it was funny, how English they were, like hot water and tea leaves were mixed in their blood. The phone rang. She let it go. She needed tea. Tea was real.

The phone rang again.

She hesitated before she reached out to grab it. It could be something important, a call from Anya from work or Greg. She glanced at the screen. Sherlock. All she wanted to do was drop it, turn it off, hell, throw it out the goddamn window. But she doesn’t. She never does, does she?

(

_“You could do better,” Greg had told her once, years ago in a pub across the street from the morgue. He wasn’t sober but neither was she. “You really could.”_

_She had laughed. They never breached the subject, not unless they were piss-drunk like this. “I don’t know. Maybe. But we don’t choose, do we? Who we fall in love with?”_

_Greg laughed too, some bitterness and some mirth. “If we didn’t, I wouldn’t still be with my wife, would I?”_

)

Molly answered the phone. And this conversation – it doesn’t feel real either. It can’t be. Sherlock Holmes was cruel at times, but he had grown. He got better. Sometimes he forgot the right thing to say, an actor forgetting his script, but he was good at heart. Molly had a type, sure, but that was what mattered above everything else. Sherlock had a fucking good heart. Tom, for all his fumbling, his clumsy hands, he did too. And Molly, _stupid_ Molly, had thought Jim for IT had a good heart.

This was cruel. And she couldn’t think, not with the news she had gotten earlier that day. She couldn’t deal with this now. A “bad day” didn’t begin to cover it. Her feelings, it went unsaid. It went without confession because that was the only way she could be his friend. And that mattered to her.

This was cruel, and so for a moment, she wanted to be cruel. “You say it,” she said sharply. “Go on. You say it first. Say it like you mean it.”

If he wanted her to say it so badly, then she would have this first. She deserved as much. It was all she could have, wasn’t it? Molly had dreamed about it, his velvet voice whispering those words into her ears. Kissing them into her neck. Choking it out like it was a disease. She had imagined every possible scenario, but she had never thought it would be like this. But she wanted it, whatever little there was, because Molly was human too. And sometimes humans were selfish.

“I – love you,” he managed. It – it sounded real. Fuck, it sounded real. If it wasn’t enough, he said it again. “I love you.” She pressed her shaking fingers to her mouth, to the kiss she never had felt. If she closed her eyes, it would be real. She could brush her fingers to her mouth, and she could imagine his mouth. But Molly dealt with reality, and this was important.

She whispered it because that was all she could do. Speak any louder and it would be a sob. “I love you.”

The line hung up.

Molly spent the next five minutes giving herself a reality check. His words weren’t genuine. They were out of desperation. Someone’s life was at risk. There was danger. He did what he had to do. All she had done was help him. Then she did what she did best: pick herself up and carry on.

 

 

**ii.**

He fell asleep on John’s couch. That was strange for him. He controlled when he fell asleep. He controlled how much drug he took in. It was all a matter of simple equations, the mathematical formula that kept his heart beating. But from sheer exhaustion, he was waking up sometimes in the mid-afternoon. He squinted at the window, calculating the position of the sun. Half past two then.

Groaning, he pulled himself up. There was a Post-it note stuck on his forehead. Sherlock rolled his eyes. Typical John Watson.

                _LEFT FOR WORK. MRS. HUDSON BABYSITTING. FOOD IN FRIDGE. NO EXPERIMENTS._

How very John Watson. After an ordeal like that, he went back to work the very next day. It might have been something special though. John had been vaguer when he talked about work lately. Sometimes was off. He had it on the backburner for a while now, but he would soon have to inspect it again now that things were beginning to get back to whatever was normal for them.

The fridge was too far away. Sherlock checked his stomach, but it was feeling minimal hunger. Some thirst. He would deal with all that at his convenience. His phone was closer, and he checked his messages. Mycroft – ignore. Clients – no, boring. Mum – he wasn’t opening that. Lestrade – later. Molly Hooper.

                _Mycroft sent me an email explaining everything. I don’t quite know how he got my email address, but I understand. You don’t need to explain yourself. And. Yes. Please rest today. – MH_

No, that wasn’t right. That felt wrong. Something was wrong.

                _I want to talk. – SH_

He waited a full minute, but there was no reply. God, he was becoming a teenager. Impatient, he sent along another text.

        _I don’t want to explain myself. Nothing I can say can excuse what I did. – SH_

That sounded right. Appropriately regretful. Genuine. No, it wasn’t genuine. It wasn’t enough. He had always been so good with words, and now there was nothing he could say. He couldn’t fit what he felt into words, let alone text. There was nothing he could say to express what he felt, how his hands clenched into fists, how he had slammed his fists into the coffin. Again and again and again.

Sherlock tried again.

               _I don’t think I can do it well. There aren’t words, really. – SH_

He then got up and attended to the physical needs of his body. One hour and forty minutes later, Molly responded.

                _The café across the street from Bart’s, tomorrow 3:00? :) – MH_

Sherlock stared at the smiley face, and then he laughed. Only Molly, with her morgue humor and her sheer kindness. His smile abruptly fell. Now he would have to figure out what to say, how to translate his horror and grief and that ache in his ribs into words. He had never liked that, but Molly appreciated words.

Of course, she might not anymore. Three words, that was all he had asked. Three words that ruined everything between them.

 

 

**iii.**

"I'm so sorry it's so soon. After everything - I heard and all." 

"It's nothing, Molly. I'm sorry too, about that." 

"I - I don't want to talk about it. But the, the other thing?" 

"Yes, absolutely. Come in." 


	2. forgive and forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She’s avoiding me,” he said, irritated. “I have been attempting to make contact with her, but it has been to little success.”
> 
> “Mate,” said John, taking a seat on the armchair with Rose in his arms. “You can’t blame her.”

Sherlock Holmes was not a believer of coincidence. Things happened for a reason. He wasn’t a believer in God or fate or pre-destination either. No, things happened for a reason because it was typical of human behavior to create patterns, and it was typical of his mind to find them.

But the first time he didn’t see Molly Hooper was put to coincidence. His parents wanted to meet with him, and he couldn’t say no. Fine, said Molly, she had a doctor’s appointment anyway. But after that, the events pulled themselves into an undeniable order.

 

  **i.**

He got back to John’s temporary flat, and he noticed something amiss at once. John was gone, but the baby had been fed and put down recently. He sniffed the air. Wood, his own cologne, baby powder and a faint but unmistakable scent of strawberries.  

She had been babysitting for the past few hours, and she had left moments before he arrived.

 

 **ii.**  

“Molly?” He called her name as he entered the morgue. There she was, dull brown hair pulled up into a sensible ponytail and scalpel in hand. Good, now they could have that conversation. John had coached him through it, telling him a series of things he could not say.

“Sherlock, your mushroom growth project is becoming _toxic_ ,” said Molly, eyes wide.

Dammit. That was important for an ongoing case. He sped to check on its progress, but when he had resolved the situation, he only found Mike Stamford telling him that Molly had a family emergency.

 

 

**iii.**

A get-together. God, he despised these things. If he wanted to see these people, he would do it anyway. There was no reason to have so much of Scotland Yard and his, well, _friends_ in a pub together. John was occupied telling Lestrade a terrible joke. He mouthed the punch-line in time with John before he turned to the bartender. He ordered a gin and downed it in one go.

“What, Holmes, can’t stand humanity?” A familiar voice asked him. It had been a while, and he took a moment to study Sally Donovan. Her hair was tied back into a curly bun, and the dark blue dress flirted with her knees. No recent sex, but she was happy.

“I wouldn’t call you a prime example of it,” he sneered, but there was nothing to say to her, nothing damning. Sally Donovan was happy. He forced out the next words. “Congrats on your recent promotion, Inspector Donovan.”

She choked on her drink. Sally stared at him for a while before she said, “Maybe Greg was right.” Then she left him to his empty drink. He ordered another whisky.

There. Molly. She didn’t have much time to get ready for this, coming straight from work. Her usual cheerful jumper was replaced by a darker red, more form-fitting perhaps. The trousers were the same, but she was also wearing a pair of heels. Sally and Molly were similar in that they had five-letter names, succeeded in fields difficult for women, dealt with the dead and had not recently had sex. But Sally was happy, and Molly Hooper was not.

Then Molly glanced up, brown meeting blue, and he _ached_. They hadn’t had eye contact last time. His eyes hadn’t met his for weeks. She turned away to talk to an Indian woman, and he looked back to the bar, something heavy in his chest.

He didn’t try to talk to her. He wasn’t sober enough to think he deserved to.

 

 

  **iv.**

Again. She was here again. “Molly was here,” he said, staring at John.

“Uh, yeah,” said John, startled. “She was tired from a long shift, and she asked if she could crash on the couch for a few hours before her next shift.”

He sat down. Couch. His couch. He could taste the strawberry in the air, pressed into the fibers of the couch, heavy on the beat-up pillow. “She’s avoiding me,” he said, irritated. “I have been attempting to make contact with her, but it has been to little success.”

“Mate,” said John, taking a seat on the armchair with Rose in his arms. “You can’t blame her.”

He glared at the pillow. “I’m aware.”

“You didn’t say anything you weren’t supposed to, right?”

(

_ THINGS SHERLOCK HOLMES CANNOT SAY TO MOLLY  _

_I love you. It won’t make her feel better. _

_It’s my sister’s fault. Always take the blame, mate. _

_I don’t love you. Again, not going to help. _

_It was for a case. Really? No mention of cases or experiments. _

_It was to save your life. She’ll understand, but it won’t help. _

_Don’t make excuses. Just tell her what happened, blame yourself and plead forgiveness. She’s one of the best friends you have. Just apologize._

)

Rose cooed in John’s arms, eyes fluttering open. A soft smile brightened her mouth, and she reached out lazily. Without thinking, he took the child from John’s arms and balanced her in his. He had learned three methods of holding a baby from the internet, and he used it based on Rose’s preference. “The last case was easy,” he changed the subject.

“What?” John’s brow furrowed. “I thought that would stump you for sure.”

He snorted, shifting Rose in his arms until she began to settle down again. “Lack of personal grooming, worry lines – divorced but not widowed, like he said. Messy sex affair. So on. Boring.”

“But what about the vanishing furniture?”

“The man’s a drunk,” Sherlock scoffed. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”  

“Damn,” John leaned back into the armchair. “Not worth a write-up then.” He glanced at Sherlock again, gaze soft. “Give it time.”

He wouldn’t sleep tonight.

 

 

  **v.**

He knocked on the door. There was some shuffling, and she opened the door. There were only a few inches between them. Sherlock wondered why he would notice that, but he dismissed it. She wore a warm orange sleeping top with a pair of pajama bottoms dotted with panda faces. Strange, but her fashion choices had always been questionable.

“Sherlock?” She asked sleepily.

“Is this, er, a bad time?” That was what people asked, wasn’t it?”

“I – no, I guess not.” She opened the door farther, letting him in. He had spent some time in here when he was dead. Molly Hooper. She had been there for him in every stage of his life. When he was alive, so fucking full of it, burning on adrenaline – and she would _laugh_ , sometimes, at the giddiness he took to a corpse. She never told her it wasn’t decent. When he had been on the brink of death, the many times he had been, really, when she saved his life. Even when he was dead, she was still there, for however long she could be until he had to go.

He took his usual seat on the leather couch, an elegant choice if not for the fuzzy blue throw-over she tossed on. She had told him it was cozy. “Tea?”

“No,” said Sherlock. He had to speak. “It was for your own good. I had to save your life. I thought your flat was rigged with bombs. I thought you would die. Your death would be very, very upsetting to me, Molly. I did mean it. We’re friends.”

He had been speaking to the coffee table, but when he glanced up, he found her face in her hands and her shoulders shaking. “Molly?” He asked, an unexpected note of concern in his voice. Those were all physical signs of sobbing.

Except then she tilted her chin up, and even though there were tears in her eyes, she was laughing. “I’m sorry,” she gasped out. “I just – my own good? Really?”

Too late, he realized he may have forgotten John’s list. “I didn’t want you to die.” It felt weak. Nothing was coming out right. His hands itched for his violin. He couldn’t speak it, but maybe he could compose a song now, explain her how he felt within an established meter.

“It was _cruel_ ,” she exhaled into her hands. “Why did you make me say it was true? You already knew it was true.”

“I couldn’t let on that your life or mine was in danger,” said Sherlock, desperate to make her understand, coveting her forgiveness. “It was in her rules.” Her life wasn’t in danger. That was the cruelest part of what his sister had done. “I didn’t know how else I could have you say it.”

“How much time did you have?” She asked, staring straight ahead at a point past him. Molly had been in the game long enough to understand it. She knew there was always a time limit. She knew there was always a clock ticking down. He was only glad that she wasn’t the one that could hear Moriarty’s sing-song tick-tock in dreams.

“Three minutes.”

Molly answered more to herself than to him. “It took you only three minutes.” It took him a moment to understand. It took him three minutes to have her say the words. It had taken her years, and it wasn’t right. “Cruel,” she said again, this time to him.

It angered him because she didn’t know. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t understand the utter desperation he felt, the fucking grief when he slammed the lid over her coffin. “I’m a cruel man, Molly Hooper,” he said. It was the truth, and she knew it.

She gave him a tired smile. Tired. He hadn’t really noticed it before, but there were circles under her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping. “Oh, I know,” she said, bitter.

“Do you?” He asked. “I saw your coffin. I was never going to see it. Of course, I would go first. Some case, some villain, something, or another would kill me. But I saw your _fucking_ coffin.”

“It’s not real, Sherlock,” she whispered. Molly used to say that to him right after he died, when he was wrecked with nightmares, when reality and illusion was the same. When he woke up, and he was the one who had shot himself in the head. “It was never real.”

“Why did you have me say it?” He asked sharply. It was a cruel question.

She didn’t answer it, gaze narrowing. “Why did you say it twice?” A cruel question for another. Molly was soft and kind and gentle, but she didn’t let him forget for a moment that she was _strong_.

He thought on it. Desperation, maybe. He had to have her say it. He needed her alive. But – no, that wasn’t right. “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

She closed her eyes and nodded, straightening her shoulders. It was the same thing John had done when he had told him that they were soldiers that day. She was readying herself for battle. “I’m going to forgive you,” Molly said. “Because I’m Molly Hooper, and I always do. And you’re Sherlock Holmes, and you’re shit at apologies.”

Oh. He forgot to say it. “I’m sorry.”

Her smile was gentle. “I know. But listen, I’m going to say something now, and after I do, you’re going to leave this flat, and we won’t talk about it. We’ll pretend it never happened. Nod if you understand.”

Sherlock nodded.

“It wasn’t right, like that. And I don’t want to leave things not right. I should have never said it, but you know what happened. But if I have to, it won’t be like that. I can’t leave things off like that. I can’t count on having the rest of my life to get it right. Or yours, like you said. So.”

She crossed the room, kneeling before him and taking his hands in her own. Her eyes were a warm brown, and her amber hair fell around her face in waves. He could follow the path of the slender column of her throat, could clutch her hands tighter and feel the rate of her pulse. He didn’t do any of that. It was her turn.

“I love you,” she said. It was said like a fact, listing off information from a scientific dictionary. Molly loved Sherlock. Fact. “There,” she released his hands, and the quiet was broken. “I’ve said it twice too. Fair’s fair. Now you forget. And I’ll forgive.”

She walked past him and into her bedroom, slamming the door shut.

He did as he promised and left without saying a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg my first chapter was a MESS because i was a MESS from the finale. but the response was amaaazing, guys! i appreciate your thoughts and feedback so much. i decided to write this today, so i hope you enjoy this more coherent writing. lmk what you think -- i value it <3 and have a happy martin luther king jr. day and take some time to reflect on everything that amazing man has done. 
> 
> as usual, comment here for questions or at my tumblr faerietell.co.vu for a faster response!

**Author's Note:**

> so i have a theory that there's something going on w molly except not much of a theory so this is going to be a 10000% sheer wish fulfillment  
> i would love your input!!! any questions can be commented here or at faerietell.co.vu for a quicker answer


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